


blood (and other wonderfully delightful things)

by starspoiler



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Batman!Stephanie Brown, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Stephanie Brown is Bruce Wayne's daughter, bruce and steph die and get better like they do in canon, green arrow bashing but really can you blame me?, i dont know how to taggg, thats the most violent it gets i think, the tenses are probably wrong ah i cant write!!, the title sucks but thats just how i roll, theres no cursing i dont think
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-20
Updated: 2018-07-20
Packaged: 2019-06-13 17:15:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15369408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starspoiler/pseuds/starspoiler
Summary: Family doesn't need to be by blood, but when it is, it makes it a whole lot harder.





	blood (and other wonderfully delightful things)

Steph knows before he does.

Babs finds out on accident, doing a harmless DNA test.

She decides that it couldn’t hurt to try and one match is normal and the other is so out of left field that it might as well have been from a different game

\--

Naturally, Barbara tells Steph first.

Stephanie is not okay with this fact and is convinced it was a mistake or that Barbara is lying because Arthur Brown is her dad. If he wasn’t, she knew that he would have no trouble playing that card during every possible game. Or that there wouldn’t even be a game in the first place.

Steph doesn’t want to tell Bruce, because she thinks if he doesn’t know already he doesn’t deserve to know, so Barbara respects her wish. Everything that could possibly suggest that Bruce was Stephanie’s father was thoroughly erased. 

\--

The one person she does decide to tell is her mom, who says that it’s a possibility. 

Steph has to face the horrible reality that her mom has seen Batman naked.

\--

The question left circling in her brain is that if Bruce Wayne is really her dad then why did he make her live in a horrible apartment in a horrible neighborhood in a horrible city with a horrible fake-father. 

Or, if he didn’t know, how could he possibly not know, and did that mean there was a chance there were a bunch of his kids running around who also didn’t know that he was their dad.

\--

When hires her to be Robin, she thinks maybe he’s found out. Barbara tells her that there’s no way he could know, but what she doesn’t tell her that Bruce is almost certainly using her.

\--

Bruce finds out at the funeral.

And suddenly the girl in the coffin isn’t a pawn or a ally or a partner, she’s his daughter and now she’s dead because of him.

He and Crystal mourn together.

\--

She doesn’t know that it’s his fault.

He buys her an apartment and shows his affection in the only way he figures will work, with money, because she doesn’t want his affection and truly, the only feeling he has towards her is regret.

She deserves better than him.

He never tells anyone else, and for a long time, it seems he never will.

\--

Jason comes back and Bruce promises himself he won’t take his second life for granted, like he did with Steph.

Tim becomes Robin again, for a short while. He doesn’t talk about Steph anymore, and it’s as if she never existed.

Damian comes into his life boasting about being the only true child of Batman and it makes his heart hurt because the one person who he knew could really prove him wrong (and who would delight in doing so) was dead. Because of him.

\--

One day, he hears rumors of a new vigilante clad in purple and he thinks karma is playing some cruel trick on him.

Batman investigates on his own (much to Robin’s dismay) and they confront each other in some old abandoned building and Bruce realizes that it’s her.

Their eyes meet underneath their masks, and something passes between them. She realizes that she knows, and he realizes that she probably hates him. She pulls her mask off, and he follows, even though they’re in public and anybody could see, and he finds himself not caring about anything except the fact that his daughter is alive and right in front of him.

She moves towards him and he’s sure she’s going to hit him or do something else to show her anger, but she, like always, doesn’t do what’s expected. She wraps her arms around his neck and buries her face in his chest as she cries, and he hugs her and cries too.

He hears her whisper an apology. He doesn’t have any idea what she could possibly be sorry for. He counters with his own apology and they start crying more and she hugs him tighter.

They stay like that for a while and they both don’t really want to move.

\--

They do move though, eventually, because he’s Batman and she’s whatever she is now and they have things they need to do. They both know that they have a lot of things they need to talk about, but at this moment they are content with just knowing that Stephanie Brown is back and here to stay.

\--

If anybody notices that Batman is completely out of it, they don’t comment.

They talk in the Bat Cave and it doesn’t start great, but they both make it clear it was Bruce’s fault. Steph was astounded that he took responsibility for his actions and wondered what had happened in the time she was gone. They both say stuff that they agree was too sappy as they cry and hug and just relish the fact that they can even have the conversation.

\--

The two of them come to some sort of an agreement and Steph moves into the Manor. Bruce doesn’t explain, Tim doesn’t notice, Jason has no right to care, and Cass is delighted to have somebody to talk to.

She continues her crime fighting career under some alias that nobody is quite sure of until she has her inevitable confrontation with Tim, who is surprisingly unfazed that she’s alive, though not quite happy about it. He has to tell her that he’s dating somebody else now which is awkward but it’s way less awkward than the alternatives. After that, she’s Spoiler again and Tim actually notices that they’re living together, and they start to be friends again.

Damian is Robin and Steph is more okay with that than she thought she’d be. They work okay together but he works better with Cass and both of them are okay with that.

\--

Cass and Steph are like sisters, and Jason and Steph act like siblings, and Dick and Steph are getting there. Tim and Steph is awkward but their relationship went much deeper. They become more of a family than ever before.

They don’t know Steph is Bruce’s kid.

And then it doesn’t even matter anymore because Bruce is dead.

They don’t know about her.

They try to continue but they can’t. Their family unit falls apart.

\--

Cass leaves first. There’s no point in being Batgirl without Batman.

Jason leaves second. He wasn’t there much to begin with but he’s now he’s never there.

Tim leaves third. He flees to the Titans and they humor his theories about Bruce being alive though they know he’s not.

Dick wanted to leave but he realizes that he’s missed his opportunity. Damian and Steph need him, and what kind of brother would he be if he left them then.

So Dick becomes Batman, sorta, and Steph takes the tattered Batgirl costume and tries to fill Cass’ shoes.

It doesn’t work. Crime increases and most people think Batman’s gone forever.

Dick thinks it too.

He’s can’t deal with it and he quits being Batman. Th costume is hung up and Gotham is left be defended by the worst Batgirl and Robin duo for the job.

Maybe, in better times, they would’ve done better. They just can’t stop fighting and Damian can’t get it into his head that Steph has just as much of a right to be upset as he does.

Because he doesn’t know. 

Because she can’t tell him. 

Tell anyone.

\--

Gotham is struggling and Steph knows that it’s become her responsibility to defend this city, no matter how insufferable her partner is. 

So she keeps fighting.

\--

People, civilians, try to help but she shuts them down. She knows that this life isn’t suitable for anyone, and it’ll leave anyone who tries dead or broken worse than dead.

\--

The Justice League gets concerned about Gotham. They don’t think it’s possible for Batman to be dead, though they’ve heard the rumors. It cant be true but Batman never maintains radio silence for this long and the death rates in Gotham are climbing higher by the day.

\--

Steph sees Barry in Gotham one day.

She follows him home and pretends to be Batman and he runs for the hills (or Central City, whichever’s closer) but not before her thoroughly convincing him that there IS a Batman and that he’s going to be at the Justice League meeting on Sunday.

Which is in three days. She has three days to find a Batman.

\--

She pulls every string she could think of, starting with Cass, who vehemently refuses, then Jason, who scoffs and hangs up, then Tim who is more polite about his decline. She contacts all of Batman’s associates but they all said no as well, and she really couldn’t blame them. Batman was one of the heaviest titles around.

She asks Damian is he’s got any ideas and he is appalled at the fact that she didn’t think that HE could be Batman.

He can’t be Batman. He can’t. He hasn’t earned the right.

She tells him this and he gets angry and starts yelling about being the blood son and Steph can barely stop herself from getting angry back and yelling that he isn’t the only kid of Batman and even so that doesn’t make him more qualified.

She tells him, cold as ice, that he’s too young.

She tells him that he’s too inexperienced.

She tells him that he can’t follow orders.

She tells him that he can’t work with others.

She tells him that those are all qualities that Batman and his partners can’t have because if they are he’d fire you and let you die and Damian almost puts it together but he doesn’t.

He hisses at her that if she hates him so much then she’s the perfect candidate for Batman, because they have that in common.

And Steph cries because he doesn’t get it. Because she knows what it’s like to have a parent hate you and what Bruce felt wasn’t hate. Because she doesn’t hate him but it’s sounding like she does. Because even if Bruce didn’t hate him, he thought that he did and most of the family treated him worse. Because she knows that it’s like to have your family hate you and she wouldn’t wish that on anyone, even Damian.

She cries and hugs him and apologizes and he acts like that’s never happened to him before.

They’re each other’s only family now.

There’s still a problem because there’s still not a Batman.

Steph realizes what needs to be done.

\--

The next day, the new Batman is on the streets, fighting alongside only Robin, just like it was all those years ago.

During their single day as Batman and Robin, they thwarted more villains than they did the entire time they were Batgirl and Robin. The criminals had gotten cocky in the absence of Batman, something this duo took full advantage of.

\--

Oracle briefed them on the Justice League meeting. She said it was a fairly standard one, reviewing their proceedings since the last meeting and assigning new tasks. Batman had missed two of these meetings (and plenty of other things) which ruined his perfect track record, but his death seemed to be a reasonable excuse.

Robin wasn’t allowed to the meeting so he wished Batman luck. 

Oracle did too and Batman wanted to make some quip about not needing luck, but luck was always needed.

A breath and nod later, Batman was back in the Watchtower with only Oracle’s voice as guidance.

They’re early because Batman is always early and Oracle guides her partner to a spot where they both can observe in secret. 

The tower was empty, but as they waited the tower slowly filled. Most of them noticed Batman’s empty seat, but none of them noticed Batman.

The group settles, and the only thing that anybody can focus on was the empty seat. Flash assured everyone that Batman was coming ‘he told me himself’ but everyone could tell he was getting less and less sure.

Hal said the thing that everyone was to scared to. ‘One more minute’ Flash pleads, but they don’t need to wait because Batman reveals herself.

Stephanie Brown steps out of the shadows as the purple reflectors on her suit capture the colors from the room. ‘Batman’s right here’ she says and inside she’s screaming because she really is Batman now. The League is in shock and she scowls and stalks over to Bruce’s seat and sits with her back as straight as possible, trying her hardest to look intimidating. The League has questions but she shuts them down. Batman is all business and she can’t afford to be distracted.

They clearly think she’s not good enough but they also clearly think she’s too dumb to realize. None of them know who she is because why would they, nobody cares about Spoiler and nobody knows about her as Robin.

Batman doesn’t get any assignments. 

Green Arrow get more assignments- GREEN ARROW. Batman is quite confident that she is more competent that Green Arrow, but she doesn’t say anything. Complicit to the whims of whoever decided that they were in charge, even though it should be her.

The meeting concludes and Black Canary approaches her and congratulates her on the promotion, but all Batman can muster is a half smile that looks more like a grimace, and a sound that was meant to be ‘thanks’. 

Batman wants to leave, all the Leaguers disapprovingly staring was grating on her, but Oracle said to wait, so she slipped off into some dark room and locked all the doors. When she was confident nobody could see, she sunk down to sit against the wall, and pulled off the cowl. It hit the ground with a soft thud as Steph let go to put her hands on her face. 

Oracle reflected on the mission, mostly positively, but Steph was convinced that it went horribly. When she expressed this, Oracle laughed. When she realized it wasn’t supposed to be funny, she tried convincing her that it didn’t, but Steph wouldn’t hear it.

The previous day, she felt like she was on the top of the world. Right then she felt like she had hit rock bottom, and the rest of the League had dug deeper and buried her.

\--

Batman is nothing if not persistent.

Within a week, crime rates are back to normal, and Batman and Robin have almost become a team.

Most of Gotham is happy that Batman’s back, and don’t care that now she’s more purple and less creepy. And a she.

But Vicky Vale does. She takes every opportunity to bash the new Batman about absolutely everything she could think of and Steph is disappointed.

Lois Lane writes an article of good things about the new Batman, and it’s much better than all of Vicky’s, so public opinion is swayed in favor of the new Batman.

Steph is grateful but at the same time she wished that people would trust her to fight her own battles.

\--

Batman isn’t the only thing the media cares about, so of course Steph and Damian are under intense scrutiny. It was lighter after Bruce died, but now they were back full force, wondering about WE and the rest of their siblings. They bother and bother and bother until Steph snaps and goes off at some reporters, and they’re left mostly alone.

\--

Batman is doing as well as she can and Robin is being Robin, and they both think everything is going well, considering the circumstances.

Batman continues working with the Justice League, and she’s pretty sure it’s going well. She thinks that until she sees on the news that the Justice League had fought some big baddie in space without even a word to her. They brought Green Arrow with them- GREEN ARROW. Batman is sure she would be more helpful than Green Arrow. 

Oracle helps her investigate and they find that there have been lots of these missions. Missions that the old Batman would’ve been invited to, but that she gets left out on.

She’s beyond furious, but Batman doesn’t get beyond furious at his teammates (at least not out loud) so she sucks it up, and at the next meeting she tries to hold her tongue.

Keyword being ‘tried’ because she can’t help herself and near the end of the meeting she makes some offhand comment about one of their fights, one that wasn’t on the news. Everyone in the room visibly pales, and she gets some sort of sick pleasure from it. She sees why Batman enjoyed it so much.

Barry asks how she knows about that, and she angrily reminds her that she is, in fact, Batman, something they seem to keep forgetting, and if they don’t start treating her like Batman, they’re going to regret it.

She wants to storm off, but that’s a Spoiler thing to do. The Batman thing to do is say sat while frowning at everyone, which really wasn’t that hard to do.

The meeting ends so she rushes off, using the trick Oracle told her to do: hide in an unused room in a time faster than it would take to Zeta, and they’ll have no idea where you’ve gone.

She really wants to cry, but she’s gotta be as silent as possible or Clark will notice she’s still there. He could easily find out, with the superpowers and all, but it seems that he doesn’t even try to look, and that’s something that she should analyze later, but for now she’s curled in a ball in the corner, trying to be quiet.

The room is smaller than she remembered, or maybe she went into a different one without noticing, but whatever the case was, she was starting to freak out. Her thoughts became jumbled and suddenly she was four again, hiding from her dad in the closet and she’s so afraid. And then she’s on a hospital bed and Batman is standing over her and he’s saying words she doesn’t understand and it seems so real but she knows it’s not, and that Bruce is dead and that she’ll never be good enough and that she should have stayed dead when Black Mask killed her.

Oracle’s voice snaps her back to reality and there’s tears on her face and her nose is running and she’s being told something she doesn’t quite understand. But just having the voice in her ears calms her down, so she takes a few deep breaths and carefully lifts her mask to wipe away the tears.

Oracle asks if she’s okay, and she lies and says she is, then retells her everything. She’s been in there longer than they thought, so she assumes the coast is clear and gets herself the heck out of there.

\--

Things get better, sort of, but really they were doing worse than the bare minimum before so really, it wasn’t much of an achievement. They let her go on a mission, and the surprise on their faces when she succeeded made her feel some sort of way.

Things with Robin are going well, and Gotham is actually looking relatively good. The new Batman and Robin are more violent than the old, both have too much anger inside, but they manage. 

Dick patrols with them as Nightwing occasionally, but they can both tell he’s just trying (and failing) to clear his guilty conscience.

Tim works at WE, because the company is his now that Bruce is dead, but Red Robin doesn’t make appearances in Gotham.

(He does however, frequently show up in California, fighting crime and aggressively making out with his teammates)

The assumption is that Cass is in Hong Kong, Steph doesn’t know for sure, since she doesn’t answer calls or texts and would never allow herself to be on the news.

Last she heard, Jason was in space with Green Lantern, so she thinks he’s doing pretty well.

Their family is spread far, but each individual seemed to be doing well, so Steph counted that as a win.

\--

Just when everything started to go sorta right, everything changed.

\--

Bruce showed up in the Manor without warning one day. Steph didn’t know how, but she truly didn’t care as she ran right into his arms. She called him ‘Dad’ at least a hundred times, and they both cried a ton. Damian joined them at some point, and Bruce gave him a huge hug. Damian buried his face into his dads chest and pretended that he wasn’t crying.

\--

The pride on Bruce’s face when she told him that she became Batman was probably the best thing she had ever seen, and the fury on his face when she told him how the League treated her was very much the next best.

\--

Steph easily gave up the Batman mantle. Going out as Spoiler removed so much weight from her shoulders that she didn’t know she had, plus Cass came back as soon as she heard, and the Batgirl mantle was totally hers.

People were sort of annoyed, they just got a totally new Batman for pete’s sake, but they adjusted to this Batman way more easily.

Batman gave the Justice League a stern talking to, and Spoiler was made an honorary member.

\--

Their family unit easily fell back into the swing of things, with weekly family dinners and frequent family outings, but as they became closer, Steph and Bruce became more and more guilty about their secret.

Bruce had become her dad now, not just her father, but she couldn’t express that around anyone else just in case there was speculation. 

They did look very similar (if you looked closely) and their personalities similar (dramatic, angry, and... passionate), but most people don’t think about it - the rest of his kids act and look like him and they’re not related, so why would this one be any different?

\--

Steph didn’t know how it happened, but somehow, Tim found out, the info got to Jason who went yelling to Bruce about it.

Bruce had the decency to make sure that Steph was present when they were talking about her, and the conversation that followed truly was one of the worst she ever had.

She dumped her whole life to them in one conversation, digging up all her past that she had buried as deep as she could.

They say that talking about stuff makes it feel better, but Steph didn’t agree. Jason looked at her differently now, but she couldn’t tell if it was with the realization that they had both died on the job, or if he just thought she was supremely stupid. Damian acted completely appalled, but everyone knew he really wasn’t upset (he was half-cuddling with her the whole time).

But having the parental secret off her chest did feel good, and somehow, their family got even closer.

Bruce publicly that Stephanie was his kid, and she didn’t hesitate to have her name changed to Stephanie Wayne, which totally didn’t make Bruce cry.

\--

After Steph graduated college, Spoiler formed her own team, located in New York because it was convenient for her and got a girlfriend or four, and settled comfortably into the position of Bruce Wayne’s daughter.

Her life started to calm down as much as a life like hers could, and everything was okay with the world. (Or maybe just with her)

**Author's Note:**

> lowkey inspired by "touch the sky" and "father" by almondrose which you should totally read because its way better than this, but thanks for reading anyway!


End file.
